Giles Coren (born 29 July 1969) is a British columnist and restaurant critic for The Times and has contributed to various publications including the Independent on Sunday, Tatler and GQ. He was named Food and Drink Writer of the Year at the British Press Awards in 2005. He has co-starred with Sue Perkins in Edwardian Supersize Me and The Supersizers Go series for the BBC. His first novel, Winkler, was published in 2005.

Coren has been a restaurant critic for the British newspaper The Times since 1993, and was named "Food And Drink Writer of the Year"[8] at the 2005 British Press Awards and in 2016 was named Restaurant Writer of the Year at the Fortnum and Mason Awards.[9][10] As well as restaurant reviews, he also contributes a regular column to The Times, the subjects of which range from personal life to politics. Under the pseudonym Professor Gideon Garter he wrote The Intellectual's Guide to Fashion for The Sunday Times.[11]

Coren has contributed articles to various publications including Tatler and GQ, and he is currently editor-at-large for Esquire. In November 2014, he joined Time Out as a columnist, writing weekly on city life.[12]

Coren has also written two non-fiction books – the first, Anger Management (For Beginners), a compilation of columns he had written for The Times was published in 2010,[18] and his second, How To Eat Out, was published in 2012.

With Sue Perkins, Coren starred in Edwardian Supersize Me; the two spent a week on the diet of a wealthy Edwardian couple, for a BBC Fourdocumentary shown in December 2007.[23] The pair were reunited for a series (The Supersizers Go...) broadcast in May 2008 on BBC Two.[24] From 15 June 2009, the pair hosted The Supersizers Eat..., which began with an episode on the cuisine of the 1980s and went on to look at the 1950s, 1920s, the French Revolution, Medieval culture, and ancient Rome.[25]

In 2012, he presented Our Food on the BBC, travelling the country talking about various local foods.[26]

In 2013, he presented Passover - Why is this night different? for BBC1 and co-presented (alongside Alexander Armstrong) 12 Drinks of Christmas for the same channel.

In 2014, Coren ventured to North America. Firstly, he filmed Pressure Cooker for Canada's W Network (since transferred to the US FYI Network) and followed that up with Million Dollar Critic for BBC America. The latter premiered on 22 January 2015 directly after Gordon Ramsay's New Kitchen Nightmares and attracted a big audience to the slot.

In January 2015, the BBC announced two new series to be fronted by Coren, Back in Time for Dinner, the first episode being broadcast in March 2015[27] and Eat to Live Forever which was shown in March 2015.[28] Both shows were a success with Back in Time for Dinner achieving a BAFTA nomination in the 'Features' category. Back in Time for Christmas followed as well as Back in Time for the Weekend. In 2016, Coren will film Back in Time for Brixton and Further Back in Time for Dinner.

In 2016, he fronted the one-off, critically acclaimed documentary My Failed Novel for Sky Arts. For the same channel he will co-host eight part series Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge alongside art historian Rose Balston.

In 2016, he presented 500 Questions, a 4-part primetime game show on ITV.[29][30] The series is taken from the US where it aired on ABC. Created by Mark Burnett, it is "an intense battle of brainpower that will test even the smartest of contestants"[31]

On 23 July 2008, The Guardian's media blog published an email from Coren to sub-editors at The Times. Coren's internal Times email used profanity, the use of which he defends,[32] to take issue with a colleague's removal of an indefinite article (an "a") from his piece, which he believed ruined a joke in his last line. Coren said a joke was lost in the change from "a nosh" (meaning fellatio) to "nosh"—a word derived from Yiddish meaning "food", which he doubted his editors knew better than him.[33]The Daily Telegraph said the incident was "not the first time the critic has been caught out writing abusive emails to colleagues".[34] The exchange was reprinted in the American magazine Harper's in October 2008.[35]

In his next article, on 26 July 2008, Coren said his Jewish ancestors had been persecuted by Poles. He stated that Poles used to burn Jews in synagogues for entertainment at Easter; and that Poland is in denial about its role in the Holocaust. He used the racial slur "Polack" to describe immigrant Poles, arguing that "if England is not the land of milk and honey it appeared to them three or four years ago, then, frankly, they can clear off out of it".[36]

Coren wrote “Portuguese cooking is the worst on earth. Or, at least, the worst of any warm nation on earth,” and followed with “Obviously, Irish cooking could give it a run. Or Polish. But in its leaden, oversalted blandness, the cuisine of Portugal is, at best, what English cooking would be if we had better weather,” Coren writes.

Aníbal Soares, president of the Portuguese branch of the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, said Coren has mixed “several issues that have nothing to do with gastronomy, from various eras of his life” and ultimately shown “great ignorance and totally irresponsible research.”[45]

On 14 January 2010, Coren attracted criticism after he posted on his Twitterfeed: "Next door have bought their 12-year-old son a drum kit. For fuck's sake! Do I kill him then burn it? Or do I fuck him, then kill him then burn it?" Vivienne Pattison, director of watchdog Mediawatch UK, condemned the remark as "very bad taste".[46][47] Coren later posted: "Oh hell's bells. Look, can I just say I didn't kill the kid, or have sex with him. And anyway he's not real. And I live in Vienna."[46]

On 13 May 2011, Coren attracted more controversy after joking about a privacy injunction by posting on his Twitter feed: "god, ANOTHER injunction tonight. another footballer. and SUCH a boring one. fucking shit midfielder... he's yet another very ugly married man who's been carrying on with a gold-digging flopsie he should have seen coming a MILE away...". Then on 14 May he tweeted "Gareth Barry looks remarkably relaxed when you consider that... first touch for gareth barry... not according to what i've heard... time for a bet. what chance Barry to score? tiny fiver on barry to score at 22–1. wdv been nice to get a double with giggs in the match before.. Barry's been pulled off...". This was later deleted but was archived.[48][49] The political bloggerPaul Staines, who writes under the pen name "Guido Fawkes", commented: "It is late, you’ve had a few drinks, you tweet something you wouldn’t if you were sober", and added: "This is possibly Coren’s funniest work for ages..."[50]

According to the Daily Telegraph, the Premier League footballer identified by Coren in the tweets was not Ryan Giggs, and was known in the privacy injunction by the pseudonym TSE.[57] The case at the High Court in London was TSE & ELP v News Group Newspapers Ltd, with TSE being described as "a married footballer" who had been involved in an extra-marital relationship with a woman known as ELP. Neither person had wished The Sun to publish the details of the relationship.[58] The injunction was granted on 13 May 2011 by Mr Justice Tugendhat, who accepted claims from the footballer that publication of the details of the relationship "would provoke the cruel chants of supporters." Tugendhat said that aspects of the case had been published on "various electronic media, including Twitter", but added: "the fact that these publications have occurred does not mean that there should be no injunction in this case".[59]

^"I seldom hear about her [Heather Mallick], but did when she wrote an obsessively fawning piece after the British author and journalist Alan Coren died. The reason was that the noted editor and TV personality was my cousin, and a dear man who helped me more than I can say and whom I miss very much." Opinion column by Michael Coren entitled "Canada: A Rogue State?" Ottawa Sun 5 December 2013.

^Hampstead & Highgate Express. 2 October 2008. It took the young Giles Coren a little time to really appreciate his father's exuberant style, especially as a pupil at Hall School in Hampstead.Missing or empty |title= (help)

^Coren, Giles (26 September 2009). "University is for sex. But I failed miserably". The Times. In three years at Oxford..." and "What I was thinking of, of course, was getting a stonking degree. And I did." and "...having, as I said, had plenty of time to work extremely hard at my English degree...(subscription required)